Hasta La Gadget!

Lube up the fixie and adjust your oversized glasses kids, the perfect hipster accessory for your journey of ironic self destruction has arrived. Created by the San Francisco-based Mr. SiMo, BoomCase is a series of portable speakers with batteries and headphone jacks pieced together from vintage suitcases. The one-of-a-kind case above features two main speakers and a top-side tweeter bunged into an old Samsonsite. The 8-pound case pushes a total of 30 Watts for up to 10 hours off an internal rechargeable battery when fed audio from your portable device’s headphone jack. $295, that’s how much. And for $20 more, Mr. SiMo will integrate a USB charger. Check the gallery for other variations although only the case above is currently for sale.

SiMo BoomCase vintage suitcase speaker rocks your androgynous hair style originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most Mac-wielding Engadget editors have had huge crushes on their HyperMac batteries ever since Apple moved to sealed-in MacBook Pro cells across the line, but there’s a chance the party is over: Cupertino filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against HyperMac manufacturer Sanho earlier this month, claiming that it’s using the patented MagSafe power connector and 30-pin iPhone / iPod dock connector without a license. Ouch. What makes this all the more interesting is that Sanho’s always said it’s using original Apple MagSafe connectors, which would theoretically defeat Apple’s patent claims — once a patent holder sells a product that contains a patented technology, it can be difficult to claim that the patent is being infringed by the use of that product, even if there’s modification involved. (Legal nerds might want to look up “patent exhaustion” here.)

The iPod connector claims might be a little easier for Apple, since we don’t know if Sanho’s using original parts in those cables — and whatever savings it might have accrued by using knockoff connectors are probably going to be wiped out by the costs of this lawsuit. If we had to guess, we’d say Apple’s simply unhappy that Sanho hasn’t joined the lucrative Made for iPhone / Made for iPod / Made for iPad licensing programs that govern use of the connector, and that the MagSafe claim is just additional ammunition to force a settlement — we’ll see what happens, but we’d predict things come to a quick end once Sanho’s lawyers send in the first bill.

Apple sues HyperMac battery maker for using patented MagSafe and iPod connectors without approval originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There aren’t too many details on just how 16-year-old Justin Butler got entangled in his Bowflex exercise machine, but we do know that the incident, unfortunately, led to his death. Update: There are now further details in this sad story. More »

It’s not the first to announce a blood glucose meter that connects to an iPhone, but Sanofi-Aventis has just rolled out what’s surely the most streamlined solution to date. Unlike the LifeScan Bluetooth glucose meter shown off during Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 preview event way back in March of last year, this one connects directly to your iPhone (or iPod touch), and it can even be kept permanently attached with the aid of a custom (and fairly stylish) case. Otherwise, it functions just as you’d expect, with it able to display all the basic info on the device itself (it can also be used without the iPhone), and a ton more info on the accompanying app. No word on availability just yet — that still hinges on FDA clearance — but the device is “expected” to run somewhere in the neighborhood of $80.

Sanofi-Aventis debuts iBGStar blood glucose meter for iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The mystery of what’s actually under the hood of the Nintendo 3DS is likely to elude us until launch date, when the inevitable teardown commences. That isn’t stopping IGN, however, from pooling together its rolodex of sources to report what it believes the specs are: two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, a 133MHz GPU, 4MB dedicated VRAM, 64MB RAM, and 1.5GB flash storage (in addition to the previously-known SD card expansion). If based on ARM11 architecture, it’d certainly be in good (if not wildly disparate) company: iPhone (original and 3G), the first two generations of iPod touch, all Amazon Kindles, Palm Pixi, a plethora of Nokia handsets, and… the Kin One and Zune HD. Two separate processors isn’t too far fetched, either, as the original DS had both a 67MHz ARM9 and a 33.5MHz ARM7 (quite an uptick, eh?). Digital Media Productions took credit for the GPU back in June, claiming its Pica200 would be the chip of choice. That’s got a maximum speed of 200MHz, which according to this rumor is being underclocked.

So, nothing that runs counter to the admittedly little we got via the 3DS’ FCC leak, and still nothing to keep the Tegra 2 hopeful in check (poor souls). Those with a need to know so passionate it runs through their very being will, as we said before, probably have to wait until it hits retail. And we should find out when that is next week.

Rumored Nintendo 3DS specs include two separate 266MHz ARM11 processors, 1.5GB storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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